Palace Theatre

The Palace that opened on Elm Street on June 11, 1921, was the third Dallas theater of that name. Southern Enterprises built it as a $1,000,000 showplace designed by Thomas W. Lamb, and actress Bebe Daniels attended the laying of its cornerstone on March 2, 1921. The opening program paired Gareth Hughes in Sentimental Tommy with organist Carl Weismann at a three-manual Wurlitzer. Cinema Treasures writers describe a domed auditorium with a Pantheon-style frieze, marble stairways and a 136-foot projection throw from the balcony, one of the longest in the South. It opened two months after Interstate's new Majestic down the street, and in 1931 those two were the only Dallas theaters larger than Oak Cliff's 2,000-seat Texas Theatre.

Publix took control of Southern Enterprises and the Palace in the mid-1920s and in 1928 began a $200,000 makeover for stage shows and sound; the theater reopened as the Greater Palace on January 11, 1929. A larger four-manual Wurlitzer arrived in 1930. Interstate Theatres then took over the house and ran it, through its Paramount partnership, for the rest of its life. Weldon Flanagan was its regular organist from the late 1940s until it closed.

On September 24, 1953, The Robe opened there as Dallas's first CinemaScope picture, on the city's first CinemaScope screen, and drew 30,000 people in its first week. In 1960 and 1961, protesters against segregation in Dallas targeted movie theaters including the Palace and the Majestic.

As first-run films moved to newer theaters, attendance fell. When the Palace's lease expired in December 1970, Interstate did not renew it. The theater closed on December 3, 1970, after a run of Flap, and demolition began on December 14. An office tower, later known as Thanksgiving Tower, was built on the site.